Since 2014, the the £50,000 prize has been open to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in Britain. It was previously restricted to the UK, the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe.

However Barnes said there were so many ‘big hitters’ in the US that their inclusion skewed the competition.

"I don't agree with opening up the Booker for the Americans. I think that's straightforwardly daft,” he told The Radio Times.

"The Americans have got enough prizes of their own. The idea of (the Booker) being Britain, Ireland, the old Commonwealth countries and new voices in English from around the world gave it a particular character and meant it could bring on writers.

"If you also include Americans - and get a couple of heavy hitters - then the unknown Canadian novelist hasn't got a chance."

Barnes accepts his award in 2011 Credit:
PA

Barnes asked: "Which American prizes are open to Brits? In theory I think only the National Book Award is. I don't think any Brit has won a major American award for years."

Barnes is not the only author to criticise the decision.

Australian writer Peter Carey, who has won the Booker twice, previously criticised the decision to open up the award.

"I find it unimaginable that the Pulitzer or the National Book award people in the United States would ever open their prizes to Brits and Australians. They wouldn't," he has said.

The US author Paul Beatty who was awarded the Booker last month

He added: "There was and there is a real Commonwealth culture. It's different. America doesn't really feel to be a part of that... I suppose I'm not generally in love with the notion of global marketing."

Barnes also told the magazine that he was now on civil terms with fellow writer Martin Amis, who he fell out with when London Fields author Amis parted ways with Barnes' wife, Pat Kavanagh - who later died in 2008 - as his agent.

"When we meet, we talk," he said of Amis. "It's not a problem. He lives in Brooklyn and I live in Tufnell Park."

And he still impressed with the standard of literature, both in Britain and beyond.

“Writers and publishers are like farmers. It’s always a bad year! And the internationalisation of literary fiction, the boom in translations, is all to the good.

“The literary novel does things no other art form can. To speak heart to heart, and mind to mind. One to one. To have that voice, whispering in your ear. In the quietness of your room. Telling you things about the heart, mind and soul. That can’t be done half as well elsewhere.”

Barnes said he is a staunch Labour Party supporter

Barnes admitted he only allows his agent to send him the "three best" reviews of the latest novel and that he does not read them online, saying: "I never go there. I think a lot of mad people operate there."

He described himself as "a Corbynista", saying: "The job of politicians is to disappoint, and I'm disappointed by his position over Europe...Yet I can't think of a policy of his that I disagree with.

“I suppose it was Mrs Thatcher who rehung the clock so that the pendulum swung much more to the right and then the Labour Party followed. Back when I was young, Jeremy Corbyn’s views would have seemed mainstream Labour.”

Watch | Paul Beatty becomes first US author to win the Man Booker prize with racial satire The Sellout